Suzie-Q’s legs were tired after running all
day the day before, and she wasn’t able to get much further than the bend in the
river where she couldn’t be seen anymore.Suzie-Q panted and
slowed down to a walk.The day glimmered despite her
desperation.Suzie-Q breathed in the day.The area
around her was almost wild.The river, swollen and brown from the
rains of the night before, smelled of wet mud banks.Suzie-Q felt
the soft ground under her feet and the sun soothing her neck and
shoulders.Suzie-Q wondered how it was possible for such intense
beauty to mingle with despair.

Suzie-Q began to ask herself where she would
go.She couldn’t very well run away from every shadow, or live
forever under a bridge.She wasn’t even quite sure where she
was.The sun glimmered, but Suzie-Q was far from what she
needed.The sun glimmered, and Suzie-Q felt magnificently
free"free like she’d never been in all her life"but an underneath gnawing told
her that freedom might not always be so kind as she felt it right now.Suzie-Q wondered some about freedom and need.Suzie-Q
thought about her father, whom she needed and hated at the same time.She thought about how the one place where she knew her needs would be met
was a place of fear and intimidation.Suzie-Q wondered what
freedom was.Suzie-Q wondered if it was possible to have freedom
without need, and Suzie-Q wondered what that would be.

Before she arrived at the practical end of
the question with regard to where she was going, Suzie-Q began to get hungry
again.She spent about 45 minutes walking and wondering if she
would hit civilization any time soon, when she rounded a river bend and saw a
mansion.The old mansion looked empty and isolated, but sitting on
the front porch was a woman.The woman was dressed in black
lace.Suzie-Q pulled her baseball cap down low and put her hands
in her pockets.She looked at the woman shyly as she passed and as
their eyes met she felt herself blushing.The woman’s eyes were
cold.The black lace was cut as low and high as possible, and the
woman wore stockings with porte-jaretelle, heels and heavily caked make-up.
Suzie-Q had already begun walking toward the woman before it had
registered what she was doing there.Suzie-Q experienced personal
heat and embarrassment, but continued walking towards the woman till she was
close enough to speak to her in a normal voice.“Excuse me, do you
know if there’s a store anywhere near here?” Suzie-Q asked the
woman.

The woman raised her eyebrows.Suzie-Q felt the beauty of the woman overwhelm her in a hot stream
despite the woman’s make-up.Suzie-Q worked hard to keep her
balance.The woman finally answered, “You’ll find one just around
the next bend.”Then the woman’s face went blank and
expressionless again as she turned away her eyes.Suzie-Q walked
away flushed, awkward and moist.Just as she reached the road
again with her back to the house, she saw a black Mercedes driving slowly toward
her.Suzie-Q’s body tightened and she looked toward the
river.The car slowed down even more as it approached her.She looked in spite of herself.The man had rolled down his
automatic window and was gawking at her.When she looked toward
him, he took his chance and said, “Wanna go for a ride,
lovely?”

Suzie-Q, as terrified as she was, felt
flattered, dizzy and sick as well.She felt sick and flattered
thinking about the beauty of the woman she had just left.“I’m not
here for that,” Suzie-Q muttered and walked faster away from the
car.

At the next bend, Suzie-Q saw the run-down
store the woman had indicated.The convenience store was one in a
small strip mall that included several boarded-up properties, a liquor store and
a bar with an unlit neon sign above it that read “strip-tease.”There were two cars in the parking lot, both empty, but one had the
engine running.Suzie-Q pushed open the convenience store
door.The first thing she noticed was a lot of empty
shelves.The second thing was the man behind the cash
register.The man was leering at her.Suzie-Q had
seen men leer before, but never so openly.He was drooling with
his eyes.Suzie-Q felt something gnaw and go queasy.Suzie-Q thought about the couple from that morning, and the beer she had
drunk, and the temptation she had known.She wondered if those bad
thoughts had somehow brought her to this lurid place.Suzie-Q felt
as if something in her must have brought her to this place.Suzie-Q thought that freedom and cupidity had somehow brought her to this
place, and she wondered if she would have the strength to resist what disgusted
her.

Suzie-Q slid around behind the shelves,
which were mostly chips and candy.She picked up a pack of ridged
no-name potato chips and rounded the bend to the cold section.There was cream, Coke, Gingerale, beer and a 3-day old soggy tuna
sandwich on white bread that cost $5.50.Suzie-Q was staring at
it, wondering if she should spend the money when a voice spoke just above her
head.

“Did you find what you’re looking
for?”

Suzie-Q didn’t move.She felt
the man right behind her, and as she couldn’t move forward at all she thought
that with the slightest move in any other direction she would necessarily bump
into him.She thought with dread about the leering face behind the
cash register.She said, “Not yet,” without moving her head, but
she stared into the mirror behind the cold section to see where to
move.

As if posed for the camera, behind her stood
a couple; the girl, baby-faced but sombre, with baseball cap, jogging suit and a
red pony-tail, and heavy eye make-up that blacked out deep circles below her
eyes; behind her, a head taller and 10 years older, muscular, tanned, with thick
dirty-blond hair and 5 o’clock shadow, and the tattoo of a scorpion on his left
forearm.The man was smiling into the camera.When
Suzie-Q saw how close to her the man was standing, she felt hot all over.Then she realized he was smiling into the mirror at her, and she smiled
timidly back while blushing and turning her head to avoid his
glance.

The man moved in closer till he was pressed
up against her, then put his hands on her shoulders and slid them down her arms
to her hands.After standing there gripping her hands for a
minute, he then slid his fingers onto her thighs and followed the contour of her
body up to her breasts, which he pressed just long enough to make Suzie-Q’s
heart explode in a racket in her ribcage, then he liberated her from her violent
emotions, leaned over to kiss the side of her neck, and said, “When you’ve
figured out what you need, I’ll be waiting in the car
outside.”

Of course the man assumed she was a
prostitute, thought Suzie-Q.Suzie-Q was practically out of
breath, and her body was inflamed worse than that morning, so that she had with
difficulty restrained herself from responding immediately to his caresses and
holding his hands against her breasts.Suzie-Q stared at herself
in the mirror.How would she leave?Could she walk
past his car, pretending not to see him?Would he react in some
dangerous way if she refused to go with him?She didn’t know where
she was or where she was going, so she wasn’t sure how she could lose him there
by the river.

Suzie-Q looked at the soggy tuna sandwich
again.There didn’t seem to be anything else to eat.She took the sandwich and chips up to the leering man at the
register.“$7.72,” said the leering man.

Suzie-Q fished in her bag for some
money.She only found loose change.It came to
89¢.I thought I had a twenty, thought
Suzie-Q.

“Oh, I don’t have cash,” she said.“Can I pay with a check?”

“Do you have ID, little Miss?” said the
leering man.

Suzie-Q shot forward towards the open pit,
fiddling around in her sack and pretending to look for the learner’s
permit.She already knew she had left it at home, roasting in the
back pocket of her Sunday evening pants.

“I’m sorry, I guess I left it at home,” said
Suzie-Q with a sweet smile.She only had $50 more in her bank
account, but $50 was enough to buy her food for a week while she figured out
what to do next, or at least for a few days.

“No ID, no check,” leered the leering
man.He seemed pleased to cause her some
problems.

“Look,” said Suzie-Q, “I’m really hungry and
you can see very well this is the middle of nowhere.It’ll take me
a half a day for me to get home from here!”

“Well, this ain’t no charity bank.Anyway, you can get a meal or some cash, if you knows how,” said the
leering man.

“Ok fine, what can I eat here for
89¢?”

“The bubble gum is 79¢,” leered the leering
man.

Suzie-Q ran behind one of the back shelves
again and scoured all the items in the store, but even the hamburger buns were
$1.09.She ran out of the store in a rage, forgetting about the
man waiting outside in his car for her.

“That was long!” said the man in the car,
squinting into the sun.“Did you get what you
needed?”

“Actually, I didn’t have enough
cash.”

“That sucks,” said the man.“Was it lunch you wanted?”

“Never mind.It
doesn’t matter.”

“There’s a great restaurant just back
there"if you want me to treat you.”

The man smiled and talked to her
normal.Suzie-Q thought about his hands coming up the sides of her
body to her breasts, and blushed.She put her head down and
wondered what to say.Was this prostitution?She
certainly wouldn’t get out of that one without yielding to temptation, she
thought, if she went to lunch with him.At the same time, how was
she going to go without food and money and get to a place where she could have
help?She couldn’t even pay for the bus with 89¢.Suzie-Q had never been on a date before.Would she give in
to desire, against God, all for an empty stomach?

“Come on, get in,” said the man.Suzie-Q saw the leering thing in his eye.“You’re so
pretty,” he went on, “I just wanna give you a kiss right now.”Suzie-Q took a step back from the car.She felt the pull
from her body, but another steely, icy hand grew up from inside her chest and
broke through her skin to put a stop to it.

“I’m a minor,” she finally said.She started to walk away.

“Well if you’re a minor, what are you doing
in a place like this?” said the man, following her in his
car.

“It’s none of your business,” said Suzie-Q,
walking faster as her annoyance and panic levels rose.She was
looking around for where she could run to.

“Ok, ok,” said the man, “I’m just trying to
help.Where in the world are you trying to
go?”

Suzie-Q nodded towards the strip-tease bar,
the only place that seemed like it might have some anonymity.“My
sister works in that bar, if you want to know, and she’ll get in trouble if I
get mixed up with the clients.”

At that point Suzie-Q ran for the bar and
pulled open the heavy oak door.

There was a woman jiggling bare breasts on a
small stage, with two men looking almost bored but staring without turning
away.Suzie-Q hoped she would not have to pretend that the woman
on stage was her sister.Suzie-Q felt shocked by her own
cupidity.She wondered where the bouncer was, and when she would
get carded.Suzie-Q felt intense movements in her groin when she
glanced even furtively at the woman.Suzie-Q felt an extreme
desire to touch the woman’s breasts and to stare at them, and she had a brief
unwitting fantasy that her own bare breasts were brushing up against the
woman’s.The woman dancing looked Suzie-Q in the eye.Suzie-Q felt ashamed to be there and witness her dancing.She felt ashamed to feel desire and ashamed to disturb this woman with
her shamed eyes.Suzie-Q had a strong sense of guilt about all
this sexuality in one day, and she wondered where it would take her.She averted her eyes.A large man had emerged from the
wings and was lumbering towards her through the smoke.He would
certainly kick her out.The oak door opened behind
her.

Suzie-Q searched and pleaded with the room
until she noticed at the far end of the bar a woman wiping down the
counters.The woman’s clothing was sexy, but her breasts were not
bared.Suzie-Q breathed into the seedy room, wrapped her
consciousness around her body and walked over to the woman at the bar.She got up on the bar stool and looked at the woman wiping.The woman did not look up at her.

“I’m sorry to bother you but I need to talk
fast before this guy walks over, and before they kick me out.”Suzie-Q spoke simply and quietly.She thought it might look
like she knew the woman if she stayed real calm.

The woman finished a stroke, put down the
cloth and slowly looked up.“How old are you, child?” the woman
breathed.

“How in the hell did you end up in this
armpit of the universe?” the woman whispered back.She leaned over
the counter towards Suzie-Q, flaunting cleavage but also confidentiality, in a
gesture that was sure to confirm sisterhood.

“I’m lost.I ran away from
home yesterday.”

The woman looked at her long, the way she
might look at her own daughter, lost and then found.She was
ignoring the impatient blond man at the other end of the bar.“I
got a daughter your age.You shouldn’t be
here.”

The blond man whistled.“Hey
Lida, stop pretending you don’t know I came in!” he yelled.Suzie-Q was surprised the man hadn’t followed her over where she
was.Maybe he was afraid of the woman named “Lida.”Lida took her time walking down to the other end of the bar, and even
stopped half way there to dry two glasses and chat with the bouncer.When she got to the other end, she slapped down her hand on the bar and
spoke in a loud voice, “So, you caught snooping down minors again for your dirty
business?How come you always end up trying to test out members of
my family?”

The man spoke so low Suzie-Q couldn’t hear
his replies.After a few minutes he got up and left.He didn’t look back at Suzie-Q.

When Lida came back over, she gave Suzie-Q a
big, open smile and took her hat off.“Don’t hide,” she said,
“Nobody’s gonna bother you while I’m tending here.”The lilt in
Lida’s warm voice filled up the space between them.“So, before I
send you out back, why’d you leave home?”

“My Dad killed a
guy.”

“Anything else?”

“He always hit me anyway.Now
he’s mad at me; besides, I’m a witness.”

“And your Mom?”

“She left home when I was
6.”

“No idea where she is?Two of
you could make it.”

“No idea.”

“Sisters, brothers, cousins,
uncles?”

“No.”

“That’s bad news.The first
thing you need to get in your head is that, at 16, you can’t make it
alone.You just can’t.They won’t let you.If you don’t want to be sent back to your father, you’ll have to testify
against him"and you may lose.They can pull some tricks.If you’re caught running, you’ll be sent to juvie, and they’ll contact
him too.But the streets are worse.”

Suzie-Q began to feel light-headed.Her vision closed in on her for about 5 seconds, and she nearly lost her
balance on the bar stool.Lida looked at Suzie-Q and
frowned.“You turned all white!What’s going
on?”

“I’m a little hungry,” said Suzie-Q.“I tried to buy something at the store next door, and realized I’m out of
cash.The guy wouldn’t take my checks cause I left my ID at
home.There’s only $50 left anyway, but that’s enough to buy food
and transport for long enough to think!And of course the blond
guy invited me to lunch.”

“The a*****e!I know he don’t
wanna pay for the prostitutes, but preying on young runaways who just ran outa
cash is sick.Anyway, he’s supposed to test for the big boss"he
gets a cut"and the younger the girl is, the more he likes his job.Now come with me.”Suzie-Q got down off the stool.Lida took her by the hand and led her into a small kitchen where a man
was washing dishes.“What’s your name?”

Suzie-Q hesitated.“Alice,” she finally
said.

“Joey, this is Alice.She’s
16, and she’s my half-sister.Make her some real food to eat, and
don’t let anybody lay their hands on her.”Lida disappeared back
into the bar.

Without saying a word, the man made Suzie-Q
a hamburger with grilled onions, french fries, and avocado salad.He set her a place at the small table in the kitchen where he took his
own meals, and pulled out a banana and some orange juice to add to the
meal.Suzie-Q said, “That’s a lot of food.Thanks.”But the man just said, “Eat.”He
then continued to clean up the kitchen.

Suzie-Q ate the whole plate of food,
including the banana, and drank the orange juice.When the orange
juice was gone, Joey rinsed out the glass and replaced it with water.When she had eaten everything, Joey said, “Want
coffee?”

Suzie-Q didn’t usually drink coffee, but she
thought she might need to stay awake.After making her coffee, the
man said to Suzie-Q, “Now do your dishes.I’m going out for a
smoke.”Suzie-Q did her dishes.She thought, that’s
twice in one day I’ve been given a full meal by total strangers.I
can’t count on that.Where in the world am I going to go
next?When she finished her dishes Joey was still nowhere to be
found, so Suzie-Q went back in the strip bar to find Lida.This
time she didn’t even look at the dancer.Lida was busy talking to
customers"the bar had filled up since lunch time"but when she saw Suzie-Q she
came right over, saying in a loud voice, “It’s my 16-year old half-sister in
town this week, wait a minute.”Then to Suzie-Q, “Eat
okay?”

“Lots and well,
thanks.”

“So, have you thought about
it?”

Of course Lida expected Suzie-Q to come up
with a solution for herself.Suzie-Q wasn’t used to thinking for
herself.After an awkward silence, she finally said, “Maybe you
can help me think it through?”

“Ok, Alice, here’s the deal.I
can help get you somewhere today, but that’s the limit of my resources.I’m stretched paper thin with myself and my daughter.You
need to think of someone you can trust, who can help you.Do you
have any friends?”

“My best friend was the cousin of the guy my
Dad killed.He’ll never speak to me
again.”

“Stop whining!” snapped Lida.“Your story is tragic, but you do not have the luxury to wallow in it
now.Give me some solutions.”

Lida was right.Suzie-Q
thought about Lida’s life, the bag lady who fed her breakfast, and Suzie-Q felt
ashamed.Suzie-Q was acting like a lost princess, and she felt
shamed to have taken so much.Stop whining and think, said Suzie-Q
in her head.But who?Who could she knock on their
door and ask to be kept that wasn’t friends with her Dad?The
music teacher floated through her head, but that seemed wrong.Her
Dad paid the music teacher for her lessons"she couldn’t very well hide Suzie-Q
from him and give her room and board to boot.Suzie-Q sighed long
outloud, a sigh of shame and guilt, a sigh of looking at herself.Finally she said, “I have one other friend.I haven’t seen
much of her this summer, but she lives in my neighborhood, and she kinda likes
secrets.”

“Why would you want to stay in your old
neighborhood?”

“I don’t.But I don’t think
there’s anybody else I could ask such a favor from.She could hide
me in her room for a while"or in her cellar"and then maybe during the day I
could sneak in my house and get my ID.If I got my ID, I could get
a real job.No one would know I wasn’t living at home.At least till school started in the fall.”

“Sounds like a short term plan.You’ll need an adult to help for the long run, but if you at least have a
place to sleep and be fed, maybe you can find an adult to help you.If you’re sure that’s what you want to do, I’ll ask Joey to drive you to
the bus.”Lida reached into her bra to pull out some cash.“Here’s some money for transport, and in case your friend’s not
home.Don’t ever come here again.”

Suzie-Q took the $20 bill and stared at
it.Suzie-Q was seeing money for the first time.“Thanks,” said Suzie-Q.

Author

Cairo, Egypt

About

Before spending seven years writing Paranoid Wasp, I studied literature at Wheaton College (IL), Yale University and the University of Chicago. I moved to Paris in 1999. In addition to ten years in Fr.. more..